Forsaken House

by Richard Baker

  “She has a point,” said Grayth.

  Araevin shrugged. It probably didn’t matter, but it might have shed some light on how Philaerin had come into possession of the first stone.

  They climbed carefully to the next level, and found it divided into two rooms: a small library full of sodden, illegible books, and a conjury with an old silver circle for the summoning of extraplanar beings inlaid in the floor. Again, wind and weather had worked slow destruction on the room’s contents. The ceiling above was mostly gone, showing the interior of the pointed roof, with large holes gaping in the shakes and rafters. Broad windows allowed slanting shafts of light into the room, showing green forest outside. Whatever shutters the windows might once have had were long gone. Ilsevele leaned out and looked down.

  “Brant and the horses are still there,” she said. “He looks bored.”

  “He should have fought the golem, then,” Maresa grumbled.

  They fell to searching the two rooms thoroughly, looking for any sign of persistent magic or treasure caches. Araevin pored through the remains of the bookshelves, finding book after book decayed beyond any possible perusal. A few had borne the years better, and those he flipped through with greater care, hoping that a spellbook or enchanted tome of some kind might have been left behind. He found nothing of that sort, but he did find a faded mage rune printed carefully on the frontispiece of one of the more intact tomes. It was the mark of a wizard who called himself Gerardin. Araevin pulled out his journal and recorded the shape of the rune and the name, in case he ever got a chance to compare it later with some other scholar or research it himself.

  “Aha! I think I found something,” Maresa announced. The genasi knelt by one wall, peering closely at it. “There’s a secret compartment here.”

  “Be careful,” Araevin said. “We know this fellow placed at least one trap in his home. There may be more.”

  Maresa lightly ran her fingers over the stonework surrounding the suspicious spot, then rocked back on her heels and pulled her leather folio from her doublet. She rummaged through the small case, and produced another packet of paper, rolled and crimped at the ends. She unfolded the packet, revealing bright blue dust, and blew the dust over the area.

  “What’s that?” Ilsevele asked.

  “Chalk dust, dyed blue. It sometimes helps to show details that you might otherwise miss. Such as this.” Maresa pointed at the wall. “See, here is the catch for the compartment, or so it seems. You’ll see that there is a faint scoring across it. That would be a spring-loaded needle scraping across the surface of the catch. If you pushed it in with your finger or thumb, you’d get jabbed, probably with some nasty sort of poison. But up here there’s a small, more well hidden catch, too. To use the main catch safely, you depress and hold in that second one, which probably prevents the needle from striking. Let’s see if I’m right.”

  She carefully pushed and held down the second catch with her left hand and used the pommel of her dagger to push the compartment catch. There was a small click, and a section of wall about a foot square popped open. Inside the hidden compartment were several small cloth sacks, some mildewed scrolls, a small wooden case, and a rusty wand of iron.

  “Well, well,” Maresa said softly.

  Two of the sacks held coinage—gold in one, platinum in the other. Another held gemstones, not magical but valuable nonetheless. The scrolls and the wand had long since decayed into uselessness, but the wooden case was scribed with delicate arcane runes. Maresa examined it carefully, and offered it to Araevin.

  “Any of those sigils look dangerous to you?” the genasi asked.

  Araevin examined the box and said, “No, they’re only for preservation.”

  He opened it, and inside lay a black-green glittering telkiira, identical to the one he carried in the pouch at his belt. Gingerly he picked it out of its case and held it up to his eye, studying it.

  “All this trouble for a single small gemstone,” Grayth muttered. “Is that it?”

  “Yes. It seems to be guarded like the other one, but I don’t recognize the rune it holds. I’ll have to use a spell of identifying or opening to get at it. Give me an hour or two to pre—”

  The terrified whinny of a horse from outside cut him off, and an instant later, Brant shouted out a warning, unintelligible through the distance and the stamping and whinnying of the animals he guarded. Grayth happened to be closest to the tower’s slitlike window. He dashed over and looked out.

  “Demons!” he snarled.

  Without waiting, the Lathanderite dived through the open stairwell, racing down through the tower. Maresa and Ilsevele followed him. Araevin paused long enough to secure the telkiira and its carven box in his own belt pouch, then hurried over to look out the window for himself.

  In the forest clearing surrounding the tower, Brant battled furiously against three hulking vrocks, demons in the shape of vulturelike gargoyles, with gray shabby wings and long, filthy claws and talons. The monsters wheeled and screeched above the young swordsman, mocking him as they fluttered just out of reach before dashing in to claw or snap at him. A dozen more fiends of the stinking hells flapped or leaped toward the tower, from hulking insectile mezzoloths to blind, houndlike canoloths with long, barbed tongues and huge snapping jaws. Araevin stared in shocked amazement.

  “Aillesel Seldarie,” he murmured. “Where did these come from?”

  A gleam of gold caught his eye, and his breath hissed in his teeth. Several of the demon-elves, including the fellow with the eye patch whom he had seen before, drove the vile warband onward. Their swords were bared, and their golden armor gleamed in the morning light.

  Araevin considered attacking the daemonfey at once, but Brant needed immediate help. His sword flashed bravely against the demons tormenting him, but each of the monsters was as tall and strong as an ogre, and they were far, far quicker. They toyed with the strapping swordsman like great cats batting at their prey.

  I’ll give them something else to think about, Araevin swore silently.

  He found a lodestone and a pinch of dust in his bandolier, and rasped the words of a powerful spell. From his fingertip a brilliant green ray shot forth, catching one of the three vrocks between its shoulder blades. The demon arched in agony, its beak gaping as it shrieked terribly. The green glow washed over its foul body and erased the creature from existence, leaving nothing but dancing dust motes in the sunlight.

  “Up here, hellspawn!” Araevin cried.

  “Take that one alive!” cried the daemonfey lord, pointing up at Araevin’s window. “Slay the rest!”

  He hurled a spell back up at Araevin—apparently an enchantment designed to bind the mage in dolorous paralysis—but Araevin muttered the words of a countercharm and fought off the creeping lethargy that momentarily settled over his limbs.

  Araevin started another spell, but two of the demon-elves below were waiting on him. As he chanted out the words, they struck with simple spell missiles that streaked unerringly up through the narrow window and blasted into him. Impacts like hammer blows staggered him and caused him to lose the spell he was casting, as he stumbled over invocations that had to be spoken with care. Then one of the vrocks broke away from Brant and flapped up toward him, scouring the whole tower-top with a burning magical foulness that almost gagged the mage.

  Deciding he’d done well enough in attracting the demons’ attention, Araevin stumbled back from the window and followed the others down the tower steps. The sounds of fighting drifted up from below, the sharp thrumming of Ilsevele’s bowstring and the harsh clatter of steel meeting steel. Araevin descended one floor and quickly dashed over to the window in the wizard’s bedchamber, risking another look.

  Demons, yugoloths, and the demon-elves swarmed around the tower. Several jostled and shoved toward the door, evidently waiting for their chance to get inside. Others scrambled over the rotten rooftop, searching for a gap large enough to drop into. The vrock and two of the daemonfey circled above him, watching the uppe
r window for any additional sign of his presence. Meanwhile, Brant still battled on against the remaining vrock and a pair of canoloths closing in on him.

  Araevin leveled his lightning wand at the monsters surrounding the embattled swordsman and blasted them with a powerful thunderbolt, slapping the vrock out of the air and leaving one canoloth as a smoking corpse on the ground. Brant staggered back, looking for a place to make a stand—and the other canoloth had him. It shot its arm-thick tongue at Brant and wrapped the slimy member around the young knight’s sword arm. Then it clenched its powerful claws in the thick loam of the clearing and pulled Brant off his feet, dragging him by his arm toward its clacking maw. Brant’s arm vanished in its mouth up to his shoulder, and the terrible jaws closed. The knight screamed and struggled as blood sprayed and bone crunched, but the canoloth’s jaws ground and dug deeper, sawing at him like some awful machine.

  “Brant!” Araevin cried. He hurled a volley of his own magic missiles, digging fist-sized pocks in the canoloth’s flanks, but then one of the demon-sorcerers hurled a tiny bead of glowing orange light through his window-slit, and an instant later the entire chamber erupted in a terrible blast of crimson flame. Araevin was flung to the ground and barely managed to cover his face in his enchanted cape, but still he was burned, and burned badly. Worse yet, the detonation wrecked the rotten floor, precipitating a collapse of rubble into the golem’s room below. Araevin slid down the floor and toppled into the debris.

  He landed awkwardly, wrenching his knee and slamming facefirst into the stone floor. Darkness filled his sight. We can’t win this, Araevin thought hazily through the pain. There are too many of them. He heard the scuffle and roar of his companions fighting nearby, and with a tremendous effort of will, fought his way back to wakefulness.

  “Come on, elf,” said a voice nearby. A pale white hand seized his arm and dragged him to his feet. Maresa held a blooded rapier in her other hand, and her red leather armor was gouged with three deep furrows across the ribs. “This is not the time for a little rest.”

  In the hallway outside the chamber’s door, Grayth fought furiously, his sword a whirling streak of silver in front of him as he fended off a mezzoloth and a demon-elf swordsman who were trying to get past him. Ilsevele stood just a few steps behind the human cleric, searching out clear shots at the enemies beyond. Even as Araevin glanced up at her, a demon-sorcerer that crouched over a hole in the roof hurled a smoking orb of sizzling green acid at her from above. The orb missed her head by inches as she somehow ducked under it, but it splattered against the wall beside her, spraying her with emerald drops of death. Ilsevele cried out and jumped away, stumbling to the floor.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Araevin said to Maresa. “We’re outnumbered.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” the genasi snapped.

  She took two quick steps and hurled a dagger up at the sorcerer overhead, striking him in the arm. The fellow cursed in some infernal language and jerked back out of the way.

  “Grayth! Ilsevele! Fall back to the golem’s room!” Araevin shouted. The rotten old flooring overhead—or what was left of it, anyway—smoldered and sagged, raining hot cinders and burning brands into the room. It wouldn’t be a good idea to stay there for long, but Araevin judged that he’d have enough time to do what they needed.

  “Brant’s still out there!” Grayth replied.

  He ducked down and stabbed the mezzoloth through its lower abdomen. The terrible creature snapped its beaklike maw and clawed at the Lathanderite’s back, but Araevin’s stoneskin still lingered, shielding the cleric from the worst of the attack.

  “Brant’s dead!” Araevin called.

  Grayth did not reply, but he retreated a couple of steps, fighting his way back toward the golem’s room. Ilsevele picked herself up, seized her bow, and dashed back as well, just as a large piece of the burning floor overhead gave way and rained fiery debris down into the corner of the chamber.

  “Araevin, this is a death trap!” she said. “We can’t stay here!”

  “We’re not going to,” he answered. “Take Maresa’s hand!”

  Ilsevele understood him at once. She grasped the genasi by the arm, and with her other hand caught Araevin’s hand in her own. Araevin quickly barked out the words of a spell, and as he finished, he reached forward and touched Grayth on his broad, armored shoulder. The whole room shimmered with white shadows, and the ruined tower vanished in a flash of light. An instant later, they were somewhere else—a cool, green forest, damp with moss and dripping water, with no sign of the demons or the tower anywhere.

  Grayth wheeled at once, covering all directions with his weaving sword, still in his fighting crouch.

  “Where are we?” he demanded.

  “The Ardeep again, near the House of Long Silences,” Araevin replied. He limped over to a mossy rock nearby and sank down, trying to ignore the throbbing in his knee and the coppery blood in his mouth. “I teleported us away from the tower.”

  The human doffed his helmet and let it drop with a clang, running his hand through his thinning hair.

  He took a deep breath then said, “You left Brant behind.”

  “The demons dragged him down. He fought valiantly, and I did what I could to aid him, but there were simply too many of them.” Araevin looked up at his old friend and said, “I would not have abandoned him if I had not seen him fall, Grayth.”

  “I know.” The cleric sighed and sat down, wincing as he did so. “Ah, damn it all to the hells.”

  He bowed his head, elbows on his knees.

  Maresa clamped one hand over the torn furrows in her side and asked, “All right, so where do we go from here?”

  “Evermeet,” Araevin replied. “I must examine this stone, and see if I can unlock it. And I mean to speak with some of my colleagues. I want to see if I can learn more about this enemy who pursues me.”

  The walled city of Everlund lay astride the River Rauvin, huddling against the feet of the Nether Mountains as if to escape the icy rain. The cold, wet weather turned its streets into rivers of freezing slush and mud, and wreathed its towers with thin gray mist. Streams of people—human merchants, laborers, and teamsters; dwarf smiths; even a few elf woodworkers and mages—waded through the streets, bundled in heavy cloaks and furs, carrying on with their business despite the foul weather.

  Gaerradh studied the city from the high windows of Moongleam Tower, endlessly fascinated by the sight of so many people engaged in so many different tasks, all at once. She was no stranger to Everlund. She usually found herself in the city once or twice a year for various reasons. Sometimes she came to buy weapons she could not make easily herself, such as silver arrowheads or a good dwarven axe enchanted to strike hard and true. Sometimes she carried messages for Morgwais or other folk of the High Forest. And sometimes she came when her duties as a Harper required her to consult with others of her society in the echoing halls of Moongleam Tower. She wore her harp-shaped pin openly there.

  Soft footfalls whispered in the corridor outside her door, followed by a knock. She had the use of a small guestroom in the tower any time she wanted it, and for the first time in a very long time she had stripped off her well-worn leather armor, weather-stained cloak, breeches, and tunic in order to wash thoroughly and pull on a handsome dress of green with gold brocade. Gaerradh, feeling a bit ungainly in the unaccustomed clothing, pulled the door open only to stop in surprise.

  In the hall outside her door stood Alustriel Silverhand, High Lady of the League of the Silver Marches. She was tall and strikingly beautiful, with hair of pure white and a perfect, flawless face. In someone else that combination of beauty and starkness might have seemed inhuman or cold, but Alustriel’s eyes were warm and compassionate, and her mouth seemed more suited to a laugh than a frown. At her side stood a young half-elf man, likewise tall and silver-haired, who wore a shirt of gleaming mithral mail over his dove-gray tunic.

  “L-Lady Alustriel,” Gaerradh stammered. She had only arriv
ed at Moongleam Tower two hours before, after six days of hard travel through the forest. She had planned to rest the night and continue on to Silverymoon in the morning. “I thought you were in Silverymoon!”

  “Hello, Gaerradh,” Alustriel said. “Eaerlraun Shadowlyn sent word that you needed to see me, so I came as quickly as I could.” She took the arm of the younger man next to her. “This is my son, Methrammar Aerasumé. He is the High Marshal of the League. May we come in?”

  “In? Oh, of course.”

  Gaerradh stepped aside, flustered. Alustriel and Methrammar entered, and found seats on the window bench Gaerradh had been sitting on a moment before. She followed them over to the window, and remembering her manners, started to curtsey.

  Alustriel reached out and stopped her.

  “Please, Gaerradh. No one who harps at twilight need ever kneel to me.” She indicated the seat opposite her and said, “You must be exhausted. Please, sit down, and tell me what’s going on in the High Forest.”

  Gaerradh sat, and said, “Lady Alustriel, I was sent by Lady Morgwais of Rheitheillaethor. A new enemy has appeared in the High Forest, a race of demonspawned sorcerers, creatures who have the look and manner of sun elves from the old kingdoms that once stood in the High Forest long ago. But they also have black, leathery wings, horns on their heads, and skin that is deep red. They employ demons and devils of all description as their footsoldiers, and have also allied themselves to the orc tribes of the forest.”

  “You said they are sorcerers?” Methrammar asked.

  “Yes, though most of them wield blades as well. I’ve seen them hurl fire and lightning in abundance. I’ve also seen them use spells of invisibility and illusion. They are dangerous foes.”

  “How many are they?”

  “We don’t know for certain,” Gaerradh said. “They’ve divided themselves into a number of warbands, each ravaging the forest. We know there are at least three different bands, and there may be as many as five or six. Each has about one hundred of these demonspawn, plus a like number of demons and devils, and two or three times that number in orcs, ogres, and other marauders.”